What happened to the Miami Heat at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs on
Tuesday night should frighten the defending champion Heat to their core.

A lopsided loss, especially when a team comes back home, is common place. The
margin of victory is not what the Heat should focus on, it's how they lost
Game 3.

To reasonably expect anything from Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade at this point is
becoming unrealistic. Both played decently on Tuesday as Wade had 16 points
and Bosh added 12 and 10 boards.

But LeBron James was not very good. He had 15 points on 7-for-21 shooting. Of
course, he also had 11 rebounds and five assists, but he's averaging just
under 17.0 ppg during the Finals.

The Big Three was bad. That itself is alarming, but not jarring. They didn't
play great in Game 2 and the Heat won.

And there's no shame losing to the Spurs. Plenty of guys headed to the Hall of
Fame have lost to the Spurs. They boast three Hall of Famers and a coach
headed to Springfield.

But here's the scariest aspect of the Heat's Game 3 loss - none of those men
factored into the setback.

Duncan was solid with 12 points and 14 rebounds. Tony Parker had six points,
eight assists and a calf massage while Manu Ginobili is a feeble shell of his
daredevil self.

When the second-most successful trio in playoff history struggles, you should
win the game.

The Heat got rolled by Danny Green and Gary Neal.

The two combined to shoot 13-for-19 from the 3-point line on Tuesday. These
two guys nearly matched the NBA Finals record for 3-pointers made FOR AN
ENTIRE TEAM. (Don't worry, Kawhi Leonard's two and Parker's one set a new
mark.)

Green had 27 points and is the clubhouse favorite for Finals MVP.

Think about that - with James, Duncan, Wade, Parker, Bosh, Ginobili, Ray
Allen, shoot even Tracy McGrady could get into the Hall of Fame, it's Green
who is emerging as the MVP.

Green was taken in the second round of the 2009 NBA Draft by the Cleveland
Cavaliers. He was picked up by San Antonio, immediately cut, re-signed and
sent to the D-League.

The story goes Gregg Popovich told him he had to mentally get tougher. It
worked.

"Luckily, I've been open," said Green, who is a jaw-dropping 16-for-23 from
beyond the arc this series. "They trusted in me. I kept running the floor,
trying to get open."

Neal scored 24 points off the bench, including 14 in the first half. He set
the tone for a Spurs team that took a six-point lead into the locker room.

Neal's story is also far from storybook. He left La Salle University after a
rape allegation (he was acquitted), walked on to the Towson team, flourished,
but didn't get drafted. Neal played in Turkey, Spain and Italy and eventually
found a home in San Antonio.

"He's a professional," said Popovich. "He's a quality individual. He made
himself ready. He really helped us tonight, obviously."

It's cause for serious alarm when it's those two destroying your team.

Don't be foolish, the Heat are not done. Yes, in the scenario of a 1-1 series,
in this 2-3-2 format, the team that has won Game 3 has won the title 92
percent of the time, but Miami is 5-0 this postseason after a loss. All five
wins have come by double-digits.

However, there is no way this Heat team should lose a game this way.

"We've got to regroup, figure out what we did wrong, which was a lot of
things," said James. "I have to play better. I can't have a performance like
that."